Watch of the Wicked (Devil's Witch Book 3)

Yansmen

The room is silent. Thanks to my heightened senses, I can see all three of their auras are indeed at rest. Valerie, the two little devils too.

I step closer to Valerie trying to focus on her rather than the boss’s blood burning in the candle. It’s out on the balcony of the hotel room, working like our smoke signal to get father down here and tie up some loose ends.

If I were a newborn, I would have ate the candle, but I know better. The candle is keeping her asleep. Noctus taps Valerie’s shoulder and she doesn’t flinch.

She’s out cold.

“Father, I have brought you to her. Shall we bring her to the portal?” he asks from his sitting position on the edge of her bed.

Our god steps away from the sliding glass doors of the balcony.

“It can wait. I need m’uh witch in good standin’. While y’all done lagged in effort, she w’ah obedient an’ obeyed w’out question. She gon’ get a temporary reprieve as a reward for her devoted servitude,” the devil commands my leader.

I’m wondering if that there’s really coming from the devil or the governor he’s currently choosing to possess.

“What then will you ask me to do?” Noctus asks with concern.

“Plant ya seed early while she’s in good health.”

Is he shitting us? Again? The boss already did that twice, and to be honest, I don’t think he’s going to have the nerve to do it a third time after Valerie’s reactions to the little baby snakes he slipped down her throat.

I’m getting the willies just thinking about it.

Noctus’s skin turns black as the room around us. His blue eyes darken on father with stubborness and unspoken fury at father’s request. He transports himself on the bed, clutching Valerie to his chest. Yeah, like the crusty racist bastard will have the muscle to snatch her from him.

Well, I guess the devil might.

“If ya don’t wish to bare this upon her, I’ll do it. I don’t think she’d prefer that, do ya?” the devil asks.

Valerie giggles in her sleep when the boss bites her neck like it’ll be his last. It’s an awkward move to pull in a situation like this. He’s probably thinking he may need to fight and stocking up on his “energy” while he can.

He faces father after licking Valerie’s neck wound closed.

“Plant it,” the devil repeats in a growl this time.

Noctus stands up, facing the wrinkly governor with a slow smile.

He tilts his head back, looking down at our father while licking her blood off his fingertips. His body shivers with etcasy as he shuts his eyes revelling in the divine taste of goddess’s blood.

He opens his eyes, dilated and a dark red now to match his temperment. “No.”

Maybe I can break the tension. “Father, savior, if I may,” I start to say.

The devil tips his black cowboy hat in my direction. “You may.”

“This isn’t like the 1700s. She’s not going to want children as her reward for being your blood bag,” I say while watching Noctus. Then I turn to the devil, a little less blunt, “Or your devoted...follower.”

“I brought you into this world,” Noctus argues. “You will give Valerie what she wants as her reward.”

However, the devil disappears without giving him a response.

"Hac nocte in somno pacis," Noctus whispers while watching goddess’s sleeping body.

Intoxicated still on her blood, he moves toward her sleeping form looking possessed by something. Maybe it is the devil -- our father come back to force him into obedience.

“Father?” I breathe out nervously wondering if it could be him inhabiting Noctus now.

He remains silent and I watch him lift up the end of Valerie’s shirt. He pulls it up until her stomach is revealed and places his hand over it. Then he takes his police vest off and removes his shirt underneath. His own marking glows a bright red too.

I’m not sure what’s come over him, but no longer do I feel or believe I am supposed to be watching.

The six-pointed star on her stomach glows a bright red. I know in my heart this is not what savior wants...or is it?

His hand leaves Valerie and she mewls in her sleep.

Feeling extremely uncomfortable, I have to interrupt the silence. “Do you think the devil even knows what she wants?” I ask.

“Oh, I know exactly what she wants,” the devil’s voice echos. I’m not sure where it came from until I find the smiling face of his red skull looking over at me as he rests beside Valerie. “Me,” he finishes.

Well, this is great. Just great.

I feel ridiculous, but ask anyway, “Savior you in there? Or am I just talking to the devil now?”

I accidentally talk too loudly, waking up Valerie in my panic.

She looks up at Noctus giggling like she’s possessed too as he lowers over her in the darkness of the night.

Okay, I guess I’m just going to be ignored.

Noctus, the devil’s possessed you. This is not the time to celebrate. I just heard his voice come out of your mouth, I persist.

Valerie doesn’t seem to think so right now. If you don’t leave, you’re going to feel much more anxious than you’ve already become watching me make love to goddess. You have five seconds to quit watching and get out of our nest before I eat you. You know I always save room for seconds and Will wasn’t very filling, he chuckles, but beneath it I sense a greater rage I wish to avoid tapping into.

Fine, I’ll take the kids with me. Goddess forbid they wake up right now. That’s the only reason you made me leave the shop and drive up here tonight, isn’t it? To babysit them, I grumble back.

You’re not wrong. Thank you, I’ll let Valerie know in the morning. Now get out, he orders in my head.

It’s not very difficult to understand why Val hasn’t seen me yet. I wonder if he frequently wakes her up in the dead of night to do the dirty. Guess it’s none of my business, but now I get to play babysitter until they decide to quit.

Maybe, this can work in my favor. If the kids like me as their new babysitter, Noctus won’t feel so inclined to kill me.

“Come on you little rascals,” I whisper while tugging them up. “Mommy and daddy claim they aren’t planning on making any more of you, but let’s not get our hopes up.”

The moment we make it outside the hotel room, their ward blocks me off from going back in. Good thing it’s sound proof too. The kids are wide awake now since I used my vamp speed to make a quick exit with them in tow.

“Heinrich!” one of the kids says.

“They know you? What are you doing out here?” I ask him.

“I want to talk to goddess. Need apologize for yesterday. Move,” he says urgently.

“Idiot, what do you think I’m doing out here? No one is going back in there until tomorrow. Including these sleepy little zombies. By the way, Noctus is the actual devil.”

“Not true. They are not zombies,” he croons while crouching down to their eye level. His attention completely lost from me. “Goddess’s little angels.”

“Ouch!” I hiss sharply when the little girl bites down on my ankle.

Heinrich laughs, leaving me on my own to try and get her to retract her fangs. Then he pulls something out of his pocket.

A piece of candy. The children follow it down the hallway ahead of us.

“I train them well.”

“Why don’t you try training yourself first?” I spit back. “Or better yet, make a nest with your newborn or something so I’m not stuck watching the kids and you.”

“Stella not want to. I asked goddess yesterday. She say no too.”

“Of course,” I mumble. “Don’t go, hey, wait up!” I yell after watching the kids run in between the vending machines.

The boy sticks his head in the vending slot.

“Get his head out of it,” I tell Heinrich.

The little girl starts crying and clutches onto my leg as if a moment again she didn’t tear into it with her fangs.

Instead of opening the flap more and pushing the kid’s head out like a normal person, Heinrich decides to lift the vending machine up and shake it until the kid’s body falls out.